Here's a peek at the Venice Laundry series. Possibly a dip or triptych. When there was a sunny day, all the laundry came flying out the windows, strung in swags, like bunting over the canals. When I saw this I realized it was the laundry of a priest. And no, I haven't painted the clothesline in yet. That will be the last thing I do. There is plenty yet to work on, like the iron grillwork over the green door and the bricks next to the window. But I love the mix of textures and the neutral palette. And I'd hope the clergy will wash their laundry and hang it out to dry. The church's dirty laundry has been in the public eye enough.

In the sometimes shells, sometimes peanuts way that life has, two people came by my house for a studio visit and left saying they were heading straight to my gallery to commission a painting. They liked another one of the Venice laundry series (one that I haven't started yet, with laundry strung at different levels, all the way down the canal). It looks like prayer flags to me.
They were delightfully enthusiastic about my work and, especially heartening to me, loved the dawn sky painting.

Still painting, though every day is prettier than the day before

Here's the last version of the tomatoes. More refining to come, especially around the lettering and the salt and pepper, but it's close.

Here's a somewhat blurry and blue-ish (shot late in the day when the light was almost gone) photo of the Met painting. I've added the background chair, more layers to the tile and worked on Washington. The pasta is slowly coming into focus. I'll probably do the glass next. Much, much more to do here.
I'm going to go running in the morning - definitely need to keep those endorphins rolling in. And yes, I did work in the yard today, if you can call admiring the bells on the snowflake flowers and the butter yellow of the minidaffodils and the leaves busting out of the climbing hydrangea 'work.'

Presidents and Tomatoes II

Here's the Met, with the olives and tomatoes popped in, and the first layer on the portrait of Washington that's on the cover of the paper museum guide. Here's a close of that detail. It's still splotchy and vague, but it's 'lying down' on the page which is a big deal for me.



Another round on the tomatoes, this time the balsamic label. I had fun with that because I didn't paint the letters. I painted the dark shapes around them. Of course I'll paint the words too, in due course, but there is something magical about painting dark curves and angles and having letters appear.

Presidents and Tomatoes

Good painting morning, so I thought I'd upload two that are on the easel so you can see the progress. First, the tomatoes. This week I added the place for the lettering (on the left side of the book cover (the book title is like the place in a church where they post they hymn numbers) and refined the tomato surfaces and plate edge. When it's drier I'll work on the balsamic label and intensify the salt and pepper. The author's name goes in big letters across the top. I'm thinking about putting my name on the balsamic label.


And this is what I was just working on - a lunch I had at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in NYC. This is really early in the painting - I don't even have all the white of the canvas covered yet - but you can see where it's going. Today I added the red caran d'ache pencil and it really pops. I'll wait until I've got one layer of paint on everything before I decide whether to dull it. Gave the sketchbook another layer of blues, filled in the fork and the salt and pepper. Yesterday I started the pasta. The spaces have olives and sun-dried tomatoes in them, dark rich colors, so I'll wait for the pasta to dry before I go in again there. Maybe work on George's face next or the glass reflectins. I've got another chair to add behind the table, and am thinking about dimming the tile floor with several layers of glazes.